"Tell you!" choked poor Dorothy, twisting her best handkerchief into a hard knot. "Do I have to tell you? Can't you see for yourselves that Ozma is missing, that the Wizard and Jinnicky are gone, that Glinda and the Tin Woodman, that the King and Queen of the Gillikens and the King and Queen of the Munchkins have vanished entirely! And yet, here you sit, singing and laughing as if nothing at all had happened. Can't you understand that something dreadful has happened to Ozma and that a big, fat, funny-looking man and a white horse are sitting on the throne of Oz?" "Ozma, Ozma--who's she?" murmured the banqueters, looking vaguely at Dorothy and then at each other. "She's feverish, that's what." Herby, the Medicine Man, leaned over to touch Dorothy expertly on the forehead. "I'd advise you to go upstairs and lie down, my dear." "Yes, why don't you?" urged Bettsy Bobbin, coming over to put her arm around Dorothy's waist. "I'll go up with you and lend you my very best smelling salts." "Lie down--with that big fat interloper on the throne of Oz!" wailed Dorothy. Squirming out of Bettsy's embrace, she started indignantly to her feet. "You must be crazy! Camy! Kabumpo! Snufferbux! Toto! You--you'll believe me, won't you?" Hurrying over to the second table, Dorothy looked pleadingly down the long board from the Hungry Tiger at the head to the Cowardly Lion at the foot. "There, there," mumbled Kabumpo, lifting Dorothy up in his trunk. "Don't go on so, my dear, we all have these little funny spells. Here, sit up on my back so you'll have a good view of the Emperor when he arrives. Hi--there he comes now! Ray! Ray! Way for Skamperoo, Emperor of Oz!" Waving Dorothy in his trunk as if she had been a flag, Kabumpo plopped down on his knees and banged his big head three times on the polished floor. From her precarious position Dorothy saw the same fat imposter who had been in the throne room riding his white charger pompously into the Banquet Hall, the horse nodding to the left and right and grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Cheers, bows and a loud burst of applause and music made his entry so noisy Dorothy's angry protests and cries were entirely drowned out. Disgusted, confused and completely bewildered by the behavior of Ozma's subjects and her own best friends, Dorothy jerked away from Kabumpo and darted through a long French window into the garden. What could it mean? What could have happened? Had all her former memories of Oz been a dream? No, no! Violently Dorothy decided against such an idea. Rather was this fat emperor a dream--a maddening nightmare from which she would presently awaken. Leaning dizzily against a golden faun set near a crystal garden pool, Dorothy tried to find some reasonable explanation of the whole dreadful mixup. And here, several minutes later, Pigasus, the winged Pig, found her.